Corynne McSherry

Corynne McSherry

Legal Director

Corynne McSherry is the Legal Director at EFF, specializing in intellectual property, open access, and free speech issues. Her favorite cases involve defending online fair use, political expression, and the public domain against the assault of copyright maximalists. As a litigator, she has represented Professor Lawrence Lessig, Public.Resource.Org, the Yes Men, and a dancing baby, among others, and one of her first cases at EFF was In re Sony BMG CD Technologies Litigation (aka the "rootkit" case). In 2015 she was named one of California's Top Entertainment Lawyers. She was also named AmLaw's "Litigator of the Week" for her work on Lenz v. Universal. Her policy work includes leading EFF’s effort to fix copyright (including the successful effort to shut down the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA), promote net neutrality, and promote best practices for online expression. In 2014, she testified before Congress about problems with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Corynne comments regularly on digital rights issues and has been quoted in a variety of outlets, including NPR, CBS News, Fox News, the New York Times, Billboard, the Wall Street Journal, and Rolling Stone. Prior to joining EFF, Corynne was a civil litigator at the law firm of Bingham McCutchen, LLP. Corynne has a B.A. from the University of California at Santa Cruz, a Ph.D from the University of California at San Diego, and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. While in law school, Corynne published Who Owns Academic Work?: Battling for Control of Intellectual Property (Harvard University Press, 2001).

Deeplinks Posts by Corynne

EFF—together with Public Knowledge, two national library associations, and U.S. PIRG—submitted a brief yesterday urging the United States Supreme Court to begin the process of rescuing first sale rights, which have been under assault for decades. The brief was filed in the case of Wiley v. Kirtsaeng, which turns on...

In an important ruling for free speech, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit today affirmed that a parody of a popular online video called "What What (In the Butt)" (NSFW, unless you happen to work at EFF!) was a clear case of fair use and that the...

Every three years the U.S. Copyright Office considers granting exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s prohibition against circumventing measures that control access to digital copyrighted works. The first hearing in the 2012 DMCA rulemaking proceeding is set for this Friday, May 11, and we thought folks might want to...

After a year-long seizure and six more months of secrecy, the court records were finally released concerning the mysterious government takedown of Dajaz1.com – a popular blog dedicated to hip hop music and culture. The records confirm that one of the key reasons the blog remained censored...

At this point, EFF readers are doubtless well-familiar with the rise of -- and battles against -- copyright trolls. Techdirt is reporting today about a relatively new copyright troll tactic -- suing only Does that are unfortunate enough to be subscribers of ISPs that don't resist mass subpoenas...

The Internet can breathe a sigh of relief today. In the latest twist in the long-running Viacom v. YouTubelitigation, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals revived the entertainment giant’s suit against Google – but simultaneously eviscerated most of the legal theories on which the lawsuit was based...

It can't be easy to convince millions of subscribers that there's no reason to be worried when their service providers agree to collaborate with big content to tackle online infringement -- especially when those subscribers weren't given a chance to review or comment on the deal. But yesterday's ...

We really have to wonder when the message is going to sink in. On January 18, millions of Internet users spoke out together in one of the most profound and effective uses of technology to organize political opposition in U.S. history, sending a clear message to Congress that voters will...

The misguided proponents of the disastrous Internet blacklist bills have blinked. Today, Senator Harry Reid announced he would postpone a cloture vote on PIPA scheduled for next Tuesday, which means, as a practical matter, that the bill is dead for now. Shortly after that announcement, Representative Lamar Smith issued...